


Nobody knows you the way that I know you

by Death2Toby



Series: The "Infinity War Never Ever Happens and Steve and Bucky Get To Recover Verse" [1]
Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Idk how to tag things, M/M, Porn with Feelings, Reunion Sex, i just want my babies to be happy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-10
Updated: 2018-05-10
Packaged: 2019-05-04 16:17:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,920
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14596860
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Death2Toby/pseuds/Death2Toby
Summary: In which Bucky comes out of cryo and goes back home but not really. Takes place in a verse where Infinity War never ever happens (:





	Nobody knows you the way that I know you

**Author's Note:**

> This is my attempt at writing romantic porn/not really porn? I mean sex but idk. RIP me.
> 
> EDIT: WOW you guys it’s 8:41 a.m. on a Saturday and I was lying awake for no reason when I realized that the ending of this story is a huge continuity error?? So I had to fix it immediately.

If anyone had been around to ask Bucky why he’d holed up in a motel room by himself instead of going back to Steve, he wouldn’t have had an answer. It just seemed like the right thing to do, or rather, showing up at Steve’s doorstep seemed wrong. And so did staying in Wakanda. He was grateful for T’Challa’s help, but he didn’t want to take advantage, so he left as soon as he was able. 

He’d known it wouldn’t take long for Steve to find him. He’d just hoped to have some time to sort things out, like perhaps the difference between memories and dreams, fantasy and reality. Or maybe how much of him is the same person he was before. But, of course, after just 48 hours, there’s an apprehensive knock on his motel room door. 

Bucky sighs to himself resolutely, untangling his legs from where he’d been sitting cross legged at the end of the bed staring at the blank television screen. He checks the peephole, a healthy sense of caution having been imprinted in his brain along with everything else, and sure enough, Steve stands on the other side. He appears to be debating whether to knock again. 

Before Steve makes up his mind, Bucky opens the door, feeling his face settle into an expression he can’t really identify. 

“Buck...” Perhaps Steve is shocked that Bucky has opened the door, or maybe that he’s even here at all. 

They stand silent for too long before Steve finally speaks again. “Can I come in?” 

Bucky moves aside. “Since when do you ask permission,” he asks, intending to joke but sounding sad instead, as though he’s lost something. He returns to his spot at the foot of the bed. 

Steve stands awkwardly in front of him, trying not to pace. He doesn’t answer, not sure how. Briefly, he registers the stale smell of the room in his nostrils and glances around. There aren’t any bags or suitcases, his brows furrow at the realization. His eyes flicker down at the floor. “You don’t seem,” Steve pauses, searching for the right word before finally settling on the wrong one, “surprised. To see me.” 

“I didn’t figure they’d let this kind of tech wander around without some kind of tracker,” Bucky replies evenly, gesturing to his arm. “And I knew you would look for me.” 

“Then why-“ Steve interrupts himself, his boldness leaving him in an instant. He clears his throat, and finally meets Bucky’s eyes, albeit briefly, before gazing back to the dingy carpet. “Look, um, I just have some things I want… things I need to say. And then I’ll go.” 

Pain registers in Bucky’s gut and he swallows it down, knowing he can’t form the words. _Don’t leave, please don’t leave_ he wants to say. _I need you._ Instead, he places his hands in his lap and watches Steve’s feet as he paces a few steps forward and back. He’s taken his shoes off. Of course he has. He’s Steve. 

Taking Bucky’s silence as concession, Steve takes a deep breath, lets it hang in his lungs for a moment before exhaling. It’s still strange, sometimes, what his body is capable of. His mind though, it feels unsteady, spent, stuck in some tenuous balancing act. It makes him wish he could go back, that they could both go back. 

The room is dimly lit by the bedside lamp, and Bucky’s back is toward it, his face disguised in shadows. As much as Steve wants to look him in the eye, lose himself in the familiar blue, maybe it’s easier this way. The words leave his mouth far too frantically, and he is painfully aware of it but it’s out of his control at this point. “I… I don’t know what you remember, about the past, about you or me or us, but, fuck. Bucky, everything I’ve done, enlisting, fighting, the serum. It was so I could protect people. And I couldn’t protect the one person I wanted to most and I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry, Buck, I wish it would have been me, I would have taken all of it to keep you safe. And now. Now I just want you to be okay, more than anything. I want you to have a life, finally, and if you would be happiest without me, if I’m a stranger to you now, that’s okay. But if you need anything, _anything_ , I will be here. I will always stand by you.” 

“Steve,” Bucky almost laughs in disbelief, but he stifles it narrowly. Steve is frozen now, and trying deliberately not to look at Bucky. “Steve, all this time I have been trying so hard to make sense of all the shit in my head. I remember so much, too much, so much that I can’t figure out what’s real and what I must have dreamt up to get me through. And everything I made up, or thought I made up, was about you. Just being with you. No matter how much pain I was in, or how confused I was I could hold onto that.” 

Unable to stay away any longer, Steve kneels down between between Bucky’s legs where he’s seated on the bed. He takes Bucky’s hands in his gently. They’re softer than they have been in a long time and he can’t help but smile at that as he intertwines their fingers and gazes up into the icy blue of Bucky’s eyes. Bucky smiles back and it’s real and hopeful and beautiful. 

“I love you, Bucky, I love you so much.” Steve’s voice is breaking on it, this huge mountain that’s been inside him since he first discovered that Bucky was alive, every night that he spent lying awake wondering if it could ever be the same. And here he is, at the peak of it. 

Bucky moves in, pressing his forehead against Steve’s. “I love you too, Steve. I just had to make sure I didn’t dream us up. Because if I had to hear it from you, that this thing I have been holding onto all this time, if I had to hear you say it wasn’t real, I think that would have been it for me,” and he does laugh softly now, but it’s a relieved sound.

There aren’t any words left for them right now, and Steve knows it, so he tilts his chin up, catching Bucky’s lips with his own in a kiss that should probably be more chaste considering their last one was decades ago, but it isn’t, because what about this has ever happened the right way? Bucky pulls his hands free of Steve’s, caressing his jaw instead and he has been holding so much back but now it feels like a raging river crashing through a dam. 

Bucky parts Steve’s lips with his tongue and it’s as though this is the only moment that has ever mattered and they each lean into it, certain, deliberate, and yet at the mercy of it. The need for oxygen surfaces too soon and they break for a moment. Bucky can’t stifle the chuckle that rises from somewhere in his chest, it’s the breaking down of a wall he’s long been building. It’s him, the real him, coming back, finally. 

“What is it,” Steve whispers, smiling just an inch away from Bucky’s lips. 

“I fucking love you so much,” Bucky replies because he can’t say it enough, and then he’s kissing Steve again and his heart is hammering in his chest. He hauls Steve up from his knees and scoots back, pulling the other man with him until he can fall back with his head hitting the pillows. 

Steve pauses for a moment, hovering to take in Bucky’s face in warm glow of the lamp, his smile radiant and real. He could have stayed there suspended in that moment forever, but he knows what’s coming next. His stomach flips with nerves and excitement and he brushes his lips against Bucky’s jawline, moving back toward his ear. He can taste the salt on Bucky’s skin, he inhales the scent of his hair and feels the other man shiver beneath him. The dreary motel room melts away around them and it’s as though they are back in Brooklyn a couple of lifetimes ago. 

“So,” Steve murmurs against the shell of Bucky’s ear, “what exactly do you remember about this part?” 

A devilish grin paints Bucky’s features for a moment, but his eyes betray him, desperate, keening. A smooth roll travels through his body, pressing against Steve in all the right places and god he was always so good at that. “I remember you,” Bucky says, and it’s true. This body may be new but it’s still Steve’s. His fingers lift the hem of Steve’s t-shirt, gently tracing the skin there for what Steve feels is far too long apparently so he finally removes the shirt himself and kisses Bucky again. 

Bucky runs his hands over Steve’s stomach and shoulders and his breath is shaky already. Before he can talk himself out of it, he grips and pushes, flipping Steve onto his back and straddling him in one fluid motion and the thought occurs to him briefly that it’s nice to use his particular skillset for this, it’s a unique and welcomed kind of redemption. 

Several expressions flicker over Steve’s face as Bucky sits up to take in the sight before him. There’s a soft open-mouthed gasp as Bucky’s body makes contact with the hardening length of him, a wry smile as though he wants to say something snarky but doesn’t, a hint of disbelief in his eyes as though he’s wondering if this is all a dream. 

“Buck,” Steve murmurs. It’s a question and and a confession and it carries a weight that grounds both of them in this moment. It also means _will you hurry the fuck up, I have been waiting 70 years._

Bucky smiles despite himself, and god he knows this isn’t funny at all and yet he keeps laughing because, well, he still can’t fucking believe it. And he supposes it’s better to laugh than to cry so he does, for the third time if he’s counting correctly, though he’s trying not to think about it. “Can a guy stop to enjoy the view,” he asks, somehow sweet and sarcastic at the same time, and Steve does have to blink back tears because that’s been a trademark of Bucky’s for as long as he can remember. If Bucky notices, he says nothing, just strips away his own shirt and leans forward again, his body electric with the feeling of skin on skin. “You’re so beautiful, Steve. Always have been.”

A blush blooms over Steve’s cheeks and he wants to respond but Bucky’s lips are dragging slowly over his jaw and down his throat, causing his grasp of the English language to leave him completely. Instead he settles for smoothing his hands over the muscles of Bucky’s back and down to his hips. He arches into Bucky, both of them moaning softly at the contact and realizing simultaneously that they are still wearing far too many clothes. Bucky sits up again and Steve misses his closeness immediately but then Bucky’s hands are working at his fly with calculated precision and Steve is dumbstruck, not for the first time. He inhales slowly, watching Bucky. There’s a thankfulness settling into his bones that’s been missing for a long time, the kind of grace only Bucky could offer him. 

Bucky dips his fingers beneath Steve’s jeans and boxers, stripping them away determinedly. 

“Who’s the impatient one now,” Steve says, voice lacking any form of the hubris which Bucky had mastered, or been born with, or something.

Bucky pauses in the middle of removing his sweat pants, brows furrowing, eyes searching, and Steve’s stomach sinks. He sits up, scooting his hips back in an effort to give Bucky some space. 

“Buck, is everything okay? Do you want to stop?” 

The other man’s eyes snap up. “What? Steve, no. No, that’s not it, unless…?”

“No, I, I don’t want to. Stop, I mean. What’s wrong?” 

Bucky gives a dramatic sigh, but smiles too. “Well, it’s just that, I’m not exactly prepared for this sort of thing. I didn’t expect our reunion to go so well.” 

“Oh,” Steve replies with a relived snicker. “Well, that’s never stopped us before.” He leans forward, gripping the nape of Bucky’s neck and kissing him deeply. 

“If you say so, Rogers. 

“I do say so.” 

“I don’t remember you being so bossy,” Bucky jokes. 

“I pick my battles,” Steve replies, his voice suddenly breathy, and Bucky becomes aware just then of how achingly hard he is. 

He finishes shucking his pants and crawls forward then, willing Steve, who stares up at him with nothing short of awe, back onto the pillows. “You were never very good at that,” Bucky purrs against Steve’s throat. 

Bucky is really in his element now, his body moving fluidly the way it has a hundred times before, fueled by lust, and muscle memory, and the softness of Steve’s features in the orange light. His lips and hands trail over all the places he remembers, and while on the surface they are both different, this is the same, this is them, it’s this beautiful thing that has kept him alive even when he didn’t know it. 

And he can’t help himself. “I don’t know where I’d be without you,” he whispers, his voice shaking with it, eyes meeting Steve’s head on. And he’s worked Steve over by now, making do with what they have the way they always used to. 

“Bucky, please,” comes Steve’s desperate reply, and he arches up against the other man who can’t help but relent. 

After slicking himself up as best he can, Bucky places a gentle hand on Steve’s hip and pushes forward gingerly, holding back his body’s natural instincts for the moment. A moan sounds from Steve and whether it’s pain or pleasure or both, Bucky doesn’t know. “Okay,” he asks, and apparently Steve has still not recovered his full vocabulary for he only nods, his jaw clenched.

For a moment, Bucky stays still, allowing Steve to adjust despite his silent assertion that he didn’t need to. He drags his hand over Steve’s stomach and flashes a crooked smile, the charming one Steve had seen a thousand times, as if in their current state Steve needed any more convincing. 

“Maybe you should quit gawking and get on with it while we’re young,” Steve suggests sardonically. 

“Well, we missed that mark by a long shot,” Bucky replies. “But I suppose, if you're gonna twist my arm…” He gives his hips a teasing push and Steve squirms beneath him. For all his taunting, Bucky feels himself coming undone, and he’s sure Steve sees right through him, one of his many talents. 

Steve reaches forward, grabbing Bucky’s wrists and pulling him down, he fists a hand in Bucky’s hair and kisses him breathless, all the while wrapping his legs around the other man’s and pushing himself up, taking what he needs. 

“Jesus Christ, Steve,” Bucky murmurs, his voice rough as he finally surrenders to a steady rhythm. 

“I told you,” Steve replies, an irrepressible moan cutting him off for a moment, “I pick my battles.” 

Bucky groans an approval and rolls his hips again as Steve drags his fingernails down his back. Their bodies slide easily together in a nostalgic ebb and flow, their heavy breaths like the crashing ocean tide. And fuck, at this rate Bucky would happily be lost at sea for the rest of his days. 

He’s not exactly sure how it happened, but now Steve is straddling him and whispering desperately into his ear as Bucky thrusts up to meet him. “Fuck, Bucky, I have missed you so much…” 

“I got you, Stevie, I got you,” Bucky soothes as his hand slips down between them, wrapping around Steve and taking up a matching rhythm. 

Before long their voices crescendo with earnest need, each of them seeking long-awaited release. The tidal wave is crashes over them, and Bucky feels like he might black out for a moment as every muscle in his body contracts and then he goes boneless. Steve collapses on top of him, just as pliant. He pushes himself off, sprawling beside the other man instead, allowing each of them room to catch their breath, and for all the laughing Bucky’s done tonight, now he feels tears stinging his eyes.

Steve rolls onto his side, chest still heaving, smiling warmly until he notices that Bucky is crying. “Hey, hey, hey,” he soothes, caressing Bucky’s cheek and wiping tears away with his thumb. “Talk to me.”

Bucky laughs at himself through his tears, leaning into Steve’s touch. “Nothing, I mean, I dunno… I’m just, glad you’re here.” 

Steve raises his eyebrows, unconvinced, but he says nothing and his lips curl up again. He scoots closer, holding Bucky who makes no effort to quell the tears because they’re long overdue and full of every emotion he’s capable of. 

They’re silent for a while, and their breathing comes easier. Bucky’s head is on Steve’s chest now, and he takes in his surroundings. It’s not home, but it feels like it right now, warm and familiar and safe. And there’s just one thing he wants to say before they drift to sleep. 

“Hey, Steve?” 

“Yeah?”

“I don’t want you to be sorry.” 

Steve holds Bucky tighter.

**Author's Note:**

> Title is from Take on the World by You Me At Six which is the Stuckiest song to ever exist imho.


End file.
